David Proctor Accomplishments

Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor was an African American minister, author and educator. He is known by some as a mentor of Martin Luther King Jr. but among students of Virginia Union University School of Theology (VUU SOT), he is probably best known as the former dean of the SOT and the fifth President of VUU.
Dr. Proctor was was born on July 12, 1921 in Norfolk, Virginia. He was raised as a Baptist and attended a church founded by his great-grandfather. After initiating collegiate studies at Virginia State College and later enrolling in the U.S. Naval Apprentice School, he abandoned both efforts and ultimately graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Union University in 1942. During his tenure at VUU, Dr. Proctor was baptized and married a classmate, Bessie Tate. Following graduation from VUU, Dr. Proctor studied at the University of Pennsylvania but switched to the Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1945. Having decided to

Proctor’s life, which abruptly ended in 1997 due to a heart attack, but my most useful take away from his life was his contributions to preaching. This assessment came after reading Dr. Proctor’s The Certain Sound of the Trumpet. Within the book, Dr. Proctor argues that a sermon must be like the sound of a trumpet in that the sermon must be clear, convincing and authoritative. Dr. Proctor viewed his book “as an effort to promote preaching that will introduce and sustain people in a fulfilling religious experience, a relationship with God that enhances every dimension of life, and a discipleship to Jesus...” I viewed the book as a straightforward description of Dr. Proctor’s dialectic method of sermon preparation, organization and delivery that could be useful not only for the seminary student but also for the hard working preacher, teacher, or evangelist who will never attend